Media Days: VANDERBILT

VANDERBILT
The coach is Robbie Caldwell.

• "It was bittersweet when Coach Johnson retired. I'm just so tickled for him ... he has his health."
  
  
• On Johnson's resignation: "None of us had any idea."
  
  
• His family only heard that Johnson had retired; not that Caldwell had been named interim coach. "You can imagine how they all settled down (once his family learned the full story). We finally got to celebrate the situation."
  
  
• On him being an interim guy: "People make more of that than they should. If it's two days or 20 years, I can say: Hey, I was a head coach!"
  
  
• His lifetime goal (as a youngster) was to be a high-school head coach. ``I never dreamed of (being a college) coach until a few years ago. This is the greatest thrill of my life -- other than my child being born."
  
  
• On if this is a fair situation: "Absolutely it's a fair situation. All they've told me is that they're behind me 100 percent. All I know how to do is work. I'm in place and ready to go."
  
  
• On if he's been congratulated by fellow coaches: "Naw. They don't know me. They have no idea who I am. Coach Spurrier does; we have a little bit of a relationship."
  
  
• "I go from lining the field to head coach in the SEC. I still walk in places and they don't know me. Last night, I held the door open for people and they gave me a tip."
  
  
• On if he'll continue Johnson's no-profanity rule: ``I'm no angel."
  
  
• "I know y'all can't tell it, but I have an education."
  
  
• "I can't be the positional coach and be the emotional, hootin-and-hollerin' (guy) and be the head coach. I need to be even-keeled. I can do that."
  
  
• On growing up in Pageland, S.C.: "You had to like watermelon. It was the watermelon capital of the world, or so we proclaimed, and you had to like huntin' and fishin', frog giggin', I was scared of girls ... and you had to play sports."
  
  
• His first job at the turkey farm?: "I was on the inseminatin' crew."
  
  
• On Rajaan Bennett, the top recruit who was killed in his home earlier this year: "I hate that the world is not going to know Rajaan Bennett. It was a tremendous tragedy."
  
  
• "We feel pretty good about where we're headed."
  
  
• "I'm a country boy; I enjoy my roots. I'm not an angel. I wish I could say that, but I have my faults. Just ask my wife. I've been preparing for this day. I wasn't consumed by being a head coach, but I listened and watched."
  
  
• "Y'all are human just like me. I don't think any of y'all are from outer space."
  
  
• He said domestic turkeys are so dumb that farmers have to use sprinklers during the summer to keep the turkeys from smothering each other. "I guess that's why I work so well with them."
  
  
• On the cultural shock when he first arrived in Nashville: "It was a big adjustment for Vanderbilt! I brought a little flavor."